


An Afterward to Some Freakiness

by chinchillasinunison



Series: The Hagakure-Ishimaru Sitcom Universe [1]
Category: Dangan Ronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc
Genre: Alternate Universe - Family, Alternate Universe - Non-Despair (Dangan Ronpa), Bodyswap, Crack Treated Seriously, Family Dynamics, Gen, Multi
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-12-22
Updated: 2020-12-22
Packaged: 2021-03-10 20:26:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,112
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28233141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chinchillasinunison/pseuds/chinchillasinunison
Summary: Mondo and Takaaki aren't themselves today.
Relationships: Hagakure Hiroko/Ishimaru Takaaki, Hagakure Yasuhiro/Owada Daiya, Ishimaru Kiyotaka & Ishimaru Takaaki, Ishimaru Kiyotaka/Oowada Mondo, Takaaki Ishimaru & Mondo Owada
Series: The Hagakure-Ishimaru Sitcom Universe [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2105859
Comments: 18
Kudos: 64





	An Afterward to Some Freakiness

**Author's Note:**

> This is set in a Non-Despair AU that I call the Hagakure-Ishimaru Sitcom 'Verse, where Hiroko and Takaaki are married, making Yasuhiro and Kiyotaka step-brothers. In this AU, Daiya is also still alive and dating Yasuhiro. That's basically all the background you need. Enjoy!

It had been an abysmal Friday. Well, Kiyotaka would say overall that it was just very odd, and it only became so terrible by the afternoon. That didn't stop his step-brother Yasuhiro from complaining and connecting their misfortune to one of his conspiracies, however.

"I'm telling you, man, it's all 'cause we went to that burger joint last night. I told you no good comes from that place!"

This wasn't directed at him, but Yasuhiro's boyfriend, Daiya Owada.

"That's exactly the reason I wanted to go, babe!" Daiya explained, "Ya always talk 'bout how your burger got abducted by aliens that one time! I want some paranormal encounters of my own!"

"But, like… why, though?"

He shrugged. "I ain't in the gang anymore, gotta make my life interestin' somehow."

Taka, irritated with the inanity of the conversation and the previous night being brought up, launched from his chair. "Well! I should go check on Mondo in the bathroom!"

"Alright, dude, you have fun," said Hiro, crossing his arms behind his head.

With that, Kiyotaka marched to the bathroom. There Mondo stood, gripping the sink with shaking hands. His face was bruised and a bloodied wad of toilet paper stuck halfway out his nostril.

"Are you alright, dear? Do you need help cleaning yourself up?"

He glanced over and shook his head. "Uh... no, no, Taka. I'm alright."

"Are you sure?"

" _Yes_ ," he insisted, "It's nothing too terrible. I'll get Hiroko to look at it once she gets home if you're really worried."

Taka cocked his head. "Hiroko?"

"Uh, your stepmom. Sorry." He squeezed his eyes shut, then held his forehead. "I'm a bit dizzy."

"Sit down, sit down." Taka guided him to the shut toilet and he sat down with a sigh. He stooped in short order and searched his partner's damaged face. His lip was split near the left corner, his right eye blackened. The blood from his nose and lip left a trail of dried pink stains on his shirt. If one looked very closely, faint spatters could be seen against a red tie. Yes, a red tie, for unlike nearly every other day, today Mondo Owada actually wore his school uniform. Completely up to standard too, without even his deviating tank top. That, combined with his normally sprayed-to-oblivion gravity-defying hair being pulled back into a neat little bun, kick-started the strangeness of this day.

In classes, he didn't sleep a wink. He didn't volunteer answers, but when the teacher called upon him he responded to the best of his ability. At lunch, he still sat with Kiyotaka, Chihiro, Leon, and Yasuhiro, but only spoke to the former and latter most on that list, and even then he didn't say much. When he left to throw away his garbage, Hiro was quick to supply his hypothesis to the rest of the table: when Mondo left for the bathroom at the burger place last night, he was abducted and replaced with an extraterrestrial doppelganger. He added that he saw it in a vision, which Chihiro pointed out didn't give it any more credibility than a hunch. Kiyotaka had his own theory, but he didn't want to voice it in public. But neither boy was in public anymore.

"Mondo, I know why you're acting this way."

His eyes were fearful. "You do?"

"Yes. It's all the result of that disagreement from last night."

He grinned despite himself and pulled the blood-soaked paper from his nose and flicked it into the trash. "You're a sharp one, son." That was a peculiar epithet, one he'd never used before, but Daiya called Taka "kid" a lot, so this was probably a mutation of that habit he picked up from his brother.

Taka placed his hand on his partner's shoulder and looked him straight in the eye. "You need not take the things he said so harshly. He's protective of me, that's all."

"... what?" Mondo seemed completely blindsided.

He stood to full height again, slowly pacing the room as he spoke. "That is what this is all about. Your argument with my father reawakened your insecurities! It made you feel… unworthy of me, and you overcompensated as you always do. But in place of machismo, you're projecting the model behavior you think we want from you!" He swiveled back to him and beamed proudly. "I figured you out! I know just how you think, Mondo Owada! I'm so good, I scare myself sometimes!"

Mondo was quiet for a moment, then shook his head and snorted. "Damn, guess I can't get anything past you, huh?" He sighed, and the air was still for a while. Then, he said, “Listen, I… I know I probably ask this a lot, but… why me? Why did you choose me to date, I mean?”

He grinned, as if the answer was obvious. “Because you’re wonderful!”

“No… I… Taka, help me out here. I need an itemized list.”

"Itemized" wasn't a very Mondo word, but all that mattered to Kiyotaka was that his partner was in need of encouragement. "Now that is something I can do!" He plopped himself down on Mondo's lap, earning a little surprised squeak from the other boy. "Let's see…" He tapped his chin for a moment or so. "Ah! Well, firstly, you're very handsome! It would be dishonest to say that isn't a factor. Secondly, you're much more worldly than I am, so I feel I can learn a lot from you! Thirdly, even if you can be rude, you're actually very kind!" His voice became softer, sweeter. "I think… you were the first person outside of my father who ever really connected with me."

"I see…" His gaze wandered off.

"Not to mention, you work so very hard. It brings me so much joy to see you nurture your talents!"

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, yeah, okay. My talent. Obstructing traffic and creating noise pollution. Terrorizing neighborhoods. Really something to be proud of."

Again, not something that he would normally say, but it was obviously an echo of Kiyotaka's father from the night before. "Well, even if it's not conventionally seen as work, you built your reputation with your own two hands! That's more than many people do! And that's not to mention your other skill!"

Mondo looked at him as if he grew a second head.

"Oh, don't give me that! I saw your first finished project! It looks fantastic, and you can only improve from here!"

"Finished project? You mean for school?"

He laughed. "Ha ha! No, silly! The carpentry project, your chair!"

He blinked a few times, searching his memory. "My… oh, yes. That was... in the dorm back at the academy. I was wondering why I had two chairs."

Now it was Taka's turn to be confused. He caressed his partner's forehead in worry. "Bro, you're not concussed, are you?"

He took the hand and gently lowered it. "I swear, I'm fine. I'm just… joking, that's all. Only joking."

"I'm glad you're back in a joking mood." He leaned in to give him a kiss, only for Mondo to draw back in kind.

"Taka, Taka, split lip!" he reminded him, pointing to it feverishly.

He pulled away. "Oh, my apologies! I nearly forgot! Would you like some ice for it?"

"Actually, that would be nice..."

Just as Kiyotaka was about to leave Mondo's lap, there was a short rapping against the doorframe. There, Hiroko stood in the doorway. "I hope I'm not interrupting anything, boys." She winked.

Taka launched to his feet and clasped his hands again. "Nothing at all, Mother! I was just attending Mondo. He got into a terrible fight while he and Daiya drove us home."

"Yeah, they told me. You mind heading out so I can get a look at 'm?"

"Not at all! I was just talking about making an ice pack for him, anyway."

"Good thinkin', hun," she praised, patting him on the arm as they passed each other. She shut the door behind him, and the two in the bathroom locked eyes.

"Uh, hey, Mrs…" the teen began awkwardly, but was interrupted by her tittering. After a spell, he asked, "Why are you laughing?"

"Nothing, it's just…" She snorted, then gestured to his outfit. "Kiki, what was even the plan here? Dress him up like a Ken doll so Taka expects more from him later?"

Kiki was the nickname Hiroko used for her husband, Takaaki Ishimaru. It would have been a bizarre thing to call Mondo Owada... if Mondo Owada was actually in the room at the moment. The teenager before her breathed a heavy sigh, like a weight had been lifted off his shoulders. "Oh, thank God. How did you know it was me?"

"The Owada kid told me as soon as he realized what happened. Kinda figured it out when he was in the bathroom screamin' about how old he was, though."

He ignored that she indirectly called him old. "And you actually believed him? You didn't think I went off my rocker?"

Hiroko deadpanned, "Kiki, my son is psychic. I can believe pretty much anything."

He tossed his head. "Hm. Fair enough."

"Now, would you tell me how the hell you managed busting the kid up like this?" she asked, coming close and tilting his chin to examine his face.

"One of those hog-riding hooligans, I'm guessing from a rival gang, started harassing us. Well, me. It was about how I dressed today and he had some very choice words before assaulting me."

She pulled out some supplies from the cabinet. "Oh, gee, I wonder why…"

"Hiroko, I'm dressed respectfully!"

"Not to a punk, you ain't." She sloshed some hydrogen peroxide onto a square of cotton. "Gimme your lip."

He turned his head to the side and she dabbed the cut. "I can do this by myself, you know. I'm a grown man," he said once she finished.

"That body's telling a different story, sweetheart. And you went riding in the body of a biker gang leader dressed like a chump, so I don't trust your judgement." She plucked a cotton swab from the container and paused. "Wait, do you even know how to ride?"

He shifted in his seat. "I... improvised."

She chortled. "Of course you did, you dork. And I guess you were going pretty slow, huh, considering it was your first ride?"

"Yes."

She squeezed a spot of antibiotic ointment onto the tip of the cotton swab. "Well, there's your problem. You weren't following delinquent etiquette."

"Now that's an oxymoron if I ever heard one," he grumbled.

"Not so! Lip."

He turned his head for her again.

As she smeared it along his wound, she spoke easily. "Kiki, it's a world in and of itself. They got their own laws and customs, just as real as the ones you follow. That kid you're wearing is high up in that world. He has an image to keep up every damn day to keep that spot. You of all people oughta know the power of a good or bad reputation."

His gaze flicked away from her and he shifted in discomfort.

She took the cotton swab away, knowing she hit a sore spot. "Hey, hun, I'm just sayin'. The stuff you and this kid worry about are prolly closer than ya think." She started packing the supplies away. "You didn't break anything, didya?"

"No. I may have tried to not engage, but I'm still a cop. I didn't let him go _that_ far."

"Good. At least Mondo won't be too pissed when he gets back here."

Takaaki buried his face in his hands. "Oh God, I forgot that part. That untrained hoodlum has been impersonating an officer this entire time. I can only pray he didn't sully my image any further..."

She reached down and ran her fingers through his hair. "Oh, babe. Babe, babe, babe. Chill out." He pitched his head up to meet her line of sight. "He's a good kid. I betcha he did just fine."

She smiled tenderly and the way her lower eyelids squinted slightly made him melt.

"Oh, I want to kiss you terribly, but it feels deeply wrong in this scenario."

Someone knocked at the door.

"Come in!" Hiroko called.

Kiyotaka opened the door with a homemade ice pack. "I have the ice, Mondo! Would you like it for your lip or your eye first?"

It took Takaaki a moment to process he was still undercover and his son was talking to him. "Uh, eye. Thanks… bro."

He shuffled over and pressed it against his face. "You're welcome!"

Takaaki took over holding it and the three left the room. Hiroko left for the kitchen to start dinner while the other two lingered in the living room. Yasuhiro and Daiya took up the couch, Hiro sitting cross-legged on one side and Daiya stretched across it with his head in Hiro's lap.

"...I'm just sayin'... if that's the M.O., an' they got the means to look exactly like somebody, why don't they scan their brains or some shit so they know how to act? Seems like a waste 'a resources if they figure it out right away." Daiya saw that image of his brother and perked up. "Hey shithead! Hiro an' I are talkin' 'bout you bein' an alien!"

"Dude! Don't say that out loud!" Hiro squealed.

"Aliens? Don't be ridiculous!" Taka hugged Takaaki's arm. "Just because Mondo is having an off day doesn't make him anything other than his lovely self! Isn't that right, dear?"

Takaaki nodded, mouth a thin line.

After a while, they heard the click of the front door unlocking. Inside stepped someone who appeared to be Takaaki Ishimaru, dead tired after a long day.

"Hey Dad," said Hiro.

"Yo."

Kiyotaka trotted up to him. "Good evening, Father! How was your day today?"

"It was a real piece ‘a shit, Taka."

"Christ, he's not even being subtle," murmured Takaaki, pressing the pack on harder.

His double noticed him and looked him up and down. "The hell happened to you? Why are ya dressed like that?"

"My lil' bro let his ass get beat for some reason," Daiya supplied, "An' I don't know what hell he was thinkin' with those threads."

He pinched the bridge of his nose. "Ya know what? Whatever. Not dealin' with that shit right now. I gotta get outta this pigskin." He left for the parents' bedroom, everyone's eyes trailing him.

Taka turned back to everyone, bushy brows quirked. "Pigskin...?"

"He didn't seem like he was doing too hot," Takaaki observed, "I'll go check on him."

He broke away from the rest and followed in his double's footsteps. When he reached the bedroom, Mondo had already removed his jacket and hat, stripped to generic business attire.

"I certainly hope you weren't acting like that on duty…"

He rolled his eyes. "Course not, old man. I was buggin' the hell out the entire day but I kept my mouth shut. But I ain't gotta do that in my-- yer house."

He supposed that made sense. "So, I assume you had as horrible a Friday as I did?"

"Yeah. I had no clue what I was doin' with all the codes you fucks throw around. Lucky it was a slow day and we live in, like, one of the safest countries ever, else I might've not brought ya back in one piece." As he said this, he fussed with the knot of his tie, but now threw his hands down in frustration. "How the _fuck_ do you do this?"

"Let me." He approached and started untying. "Did your father never teach you how to tie a tie?"

"My dad left before I was born. Didn't Taka tell you that?"

"Maybe. My hours are long, sometimes things slip my mind."

An awkward beat. Maybe that wasn't the best thing to say about such a personal matter, that you mentally discarded it like a gum wrapper...

"How did you get it on this morning, then?"

"Mrs. Hagakure helped me."

"Ah."

The tie was undone. Mondo dragged it across his shoulders and flung it to the floor. He stretched and immediately pulled something. "AH, FUCK!" He yelped in pain, "THIS BODY SUCKS ASS!"

His smirk snaked out from behind the ice pack. "That's what happens when you get old."

"Well that settles it! Once I hit forty I'm drivin' myself off a cliff!"

He and Owada didn't have the best relationship, it was true, but he didn't want anything _bad_ to happen to the kid. "Oh, not if I have anything to say about it, young man! I'm in your body, after all!"

Mondo became sullen at the reminder. "Oh yeah, right. An' we got no clue how to switch back…"

They both fell silent. It was an uncomfortable truth they had to reckon with individually before, but it hurt even more to see the uncertainty etched into their own features reflected back at them. It was like two horrible funhouse mirrors facing each other, their images echoing into eternity.

"Maybe we can think of something if we... retrace our steps, starting from last night, when we were still ourselves," Takaaki reasoned.

Mondo nodded slowly. "Yeah, yeah. That makes sense. So... we were at the burger place..."

"And you couldn't reign in that temper..."

"I'm not a burger guy, okay? The toppings an' shit slide out whenever ya bite it! I was gettin' frustrated!"

"You're ridiculous…" Takaaki huffed, visible eye rolling.

"Well you did a damn fine job deescalating the situation, officer!" He snipped. Takaaki wanted to refute his obvious sarcasm, but he was right. He really did only fan the flames, as ordering Mondo to be quiet and polite quickly snowballed into an avalanche of criticisms about the boy's entire character.

"Right, I... take some responsibility for that. We argued, and it came to the point where I said I didn't think you were fit to be in a relationship with my son."

"An' I said that you were just jealous that ya didn't have him all to yerself anymore… or somethin' like that. I was mad, I don't remember stuff that well when I'm mad."

"And you stormed off to the bathroom and I followed you. And that's when we met that employee, and she gave us…"

Their eyes met and they cried simultaneously, "The toy!"

"Where'd ya put it?"

"Uh-- in my coat pocket, I believe!"

Mondo threw the door open and flew down the hall like a bullet. Takaaki was amazed that his own body could still move that fast. When Mondo came back, he had the little plastic doodad in his hand.

It was a fat, circular disk, about the size of an adult's palm. It was made of a top and bottom panel, the top a clear plastic while the bottom was lime green. Encased within these panels was a small maze, the same plastic as the top panel if slightly fogged so it could be seen. On the maze floor was a swirling pattern of red and blue, starting from a small hole on either side. Both holes each lead to a little see-through bubble that stuck through the bottom panel. These bubbles housed the maze's travelers: two round pellets, one red and one blue. On the surface, it was a completely unremarkable trinket, something a child may play with on a long car ride for five minutes only to let it slip between the seat cushions and into oblivion. In fact, the only thing Takaaki found noteworthy about it up until this point was its shoddy construction: so poorly was the plastic cut and assembled that both of them had managed to cut themselves on it the night before. These, however, were vastly different circumstances.

"Hey, what the fuck is this?" said Mondo, squinting as he lifted the thing up so they could both see the bottom clearly.

The pellets were in the wrong holes, the blue in the red and the red in the blue. The real cause for alarm, however, was what was in there with them. The home bases were partly filled with a thick, obnoxiously pink liquid, which the mismatched pellets sat in.

"Is that... blood?" asked Takaaki, "Our blood?"

It had to be. It was completely clean when the employee handed it to Mondo, talking about it being "complimentary" even when Takaaki pointed out no one ordered a kid's meal. Then, Mondo sliced his finger on it as he tried figuring out how to play, and Takaaki took it from him while he nursed the digit in his mouth, earning a small slit through his palm as he stowed it away.

"If… if it's able to channel and store blood as neatly as this, that must mean it was _designed_ to do it," Takaaki realized.

He lowered it back down. “So what the fuck’s that mean?”

“It means… well… I think it means this toy was indeed the cause of our predicament. It’s imbued with some sort of… blood magic.”

A beat.

“Okay, that sounds fuckin’ insane, but this--” He gestured them both up and down. “-- _is_ insane, so ya get a pass. It’s prolly the only thing that makes sense, actually. Didya get sick after ya got pricked, too?”

He thought it over, slowly lowering his ice pack and setting it down. “Yes, I did. It wasn’t anything major, I just felt a bit lightheaded and by the time Hiroko and I got home, I was exhausted. I thought it was just work fatigue.”

“I felt the same! The moment I stepped in my dorm I could only throw my jacket off and wash the stuff outta my hair before I threw m’self on the bed!”

“And then, of course, we woke up in the wrong bodies.”

The timeline and cause established, Mondo went about fixing it the only way he knew how. He raised his fist to pound the toy to bits before Takaaki arrested his arm.

“What do you think you’re doing?!”

“I dunno! I thought breakin’ it could break the spell!”

“What if it wasn’t and you ended up trapping us like this forever?! Think, man!”

He lowered his arm shamefully. “Sorry.” He was quiet, then said, “Whatcha think we should do instead?”

Takaaki glanced about the nooks of the maze. “Well, it’s a puzzle, isn’t it? Maybe we’re supposed to solve it.”

He handed it over. “Eh, that’s prolly yer department, then. Or maybe Taka’s, he loves puzzles.”

“I am _not_ letting my son touch this thing.”

“Hey guys, whatcha talkin’ about?” asked Yasuhiro, who suddenly popped into the doorframe.

The pair jumped, and Takaaki clutched the toy to his chest.

“Hiro! How long have you been there… dude?”

He rubbed the underside of his nose. “Just got here. I came up to tell you guys dinner’s ready. What’s that?”

“Oh, it’s just a... stupid-ass toy from that place we were at. Complimentary, the chick there said.”

Mondo wondered why the hell Takaaki was only bothering to act like him now. Everybody already knew something screwy was going on between them. It was too little too late.

After Hiro gave Takaaki-in-Mondo’s-body a weird look, they all left for the dining room. Takaaki tried to solve the maze underneath the table, but Kiyotaka caught him in the act and lectured about the rudeness of playing games during a family dinner and badgered him to put it away. The irony of his own son disciplining him was not lost on Takaaki, nor on Mondo, who snickered something fierce at the sight. Hiroko smirked as well, but it may have been due to amusement at Kiyotaka's sternness in general. They ate and talked when they had to, and the meal passed without incident.

After dinner, Mondo played husband and helped clean up with Hiroko and Taka, while Takaaki got back to work on the toy maze. Once they finished the dishes, Takaaki was back (and pressing the ice pack to his lip wound).

"Hey, old man, can I borrow you for a sec?"

"Sure."

They hid themselves away in a private corner of the house.

"Mondo, it's not working."

"The hell do you mean it's not working?!"

"I mean--!" He threw down the pack and picked the toy back up. He shook it, and there was no rattling as one would expect from an enclosed case with two small balls inside. "They're stuck! The blood is making them stick to the walls!"

Oh no.

Oh _no._

"D-didya try hittin' it against somethin'?!"

"Do you realize how cheap this plastic is? One strong enough strike and it will shatter and we lose our only hope for escaping this nightmare!"

Mondo wanted to scream. He wanted to kick and punch and yell so terribly that it burned his insides. Instead, he growled, "It's not fair, it's not fair! Why'd it hafta happen to..." He stopped, blinked, and his voice became soft. "...us…?" He pushed his hand through his now short hair. "Fuck, that's it, ain't it?"

"What? What's it?"

He pointed to the toy. "That chick, she gave us that thing for a reason. It works the way it does for _a reason_ _!_ It's 'cause there's _bad blood_ between us! We start gettin' along, that bad blood in there dries up an' we're in the clear!"

He tried to think of some sort of counter to the theory besides that being a lot to hinge on a pun, but he couldn't find one. This whole thing was absurd enough to be based around a pun, really. "That's… actually very clever of you. Nice work."

"Aw, ya gettin' a head start?" Mondo teased.

Okay… this was... somewhere to go. Takaaki felt a glimmer of confidence spark inside him. "This is… a matter of empathy, isn't it? Empathy is the enemy of animosity. We have to be empathetic towards each other."

"Yeah, yeah, I get what you're puttin' down." Mondo scratched at his stubble. "Okay, I'll start: bein' you sucks massive balls."

"That's not where I expected you to take this, but okay."

He kept going as if he hadn't been interrupted, "I'm tired all the time and just, like, everything's sore. When I was at the station today I swear those other cops were gonna bite my fuckin' head off. Like, I'm used to that vibe from cops when I'm myself, but yer one of 'em! It's fucked up! It's like I was at the back of the Crazy Diamonds pack again, but if whenever they looked at me I knew that if I dropped dead, they'd laugh. I thought you were just an uptight asshole, but you got serious guts to surround yerself in that shit everyday. I can see where Taka gets it from."

Takaaki was having trouble believing what he just heard. He thought he would have to pry at the thug for hours to get him to this level of understanding. He assumed that his selfish lifestyle, pushing so hard against the grain of decent society, meant that the teen would have trouble sympathizing with him even in this fantastical scenario. He really had misjudged him, hadn't he?

"C'mon, it's your turn," said the biker, shoving him on the shoulder as a display of affection, "What'd ya learn?"

"What did I…" His fingers grazed his damaged lips. What did he learn? He wore this boy's skin the whole day, saw through his eyes and breathed through his lungs. "I… don't know if I learned much. Much of the day, I was trying to prove a point by cleaning up your act, but that didn't work out. All I got for my trouble were unsettled classmates and a bruised face.” He let out a little grunt and switched the pack from his lip back to his eye. “Hiroko told me earlier that you have a whole world you have to present to, that what you wear is a uniform like any other, and that we were more similar than we realized. I guess this is proof of that.”

They waited for something to happen, searching one another for some sign of change. Minutes ticked by. Nothing.

The smile that had been growing on Mondo’s face slowly faded. His head shook. “...It’s not enough. Fuck, it’s not enough. We’re gonna be stuck like this for the rest of our lives…”

Takaaki squeezed the spiraling teen’s shoulder. “Mondo, don’t panic. We have time. We’ll figure something out.”

“An’ what if we don’t?! We jus’... keep up this whole charade ‘til we die?! We can’t! _I_ can’t!”

“Mondo--”

“I... can’t. I can’t be a dad yet, I’m sixteen. I’m sixteen. Shit.” His head dropped. “There’s so much I wanna do, so much I wanna be, an’ now I can’t do it no more. I can’t even kiss my fuckin’ boyfriend now without feelin’ like a sick freak.”

It had been torture in its own way for Takaaki to witness his son unknowingly flirt with his own father. He could imagine the horror of the inverted situation clearly, and it stung even to think about.

“Mondo, I’m so sorry.”

He never responded to that. He just let that hang in the air for minutes on end. When he spoke again, his voice was thick and heavy.

“Can I… ask ya a favor?”

“I suppose.”

“Couldya… dump Taka for me?”

“What?” Takaaki's tone, in contrast to Mondo’s, was gossamer and butterfly wings. Delicate and fluttering, like a breeze could take it away.

“The writing’s on the wall. If we keep this up too long, he’s gonna figure it out. If he does, he’s gonna get hurt. He’ll hurt real fuckin’ bad. I need ya to let him down easy before that happens. At least then, when he finds out, he won’t have feelings for me anymore. That’ll make it a little easier.”

It was here that Takaaki found another lesson from today taking shape in his mind. He asked Kiyotaka before why he fell in love with Mondo. Among other reasons, the main one seemed to be, simply, that he cared. And perhaps yesterday a piece of Takaaki would have scoffed at that. The hooligan didn’t even care enough to follow motorcycle safety laws or dress codes, what capacity for care could he possibly have? In reality, he found Mondo cared about a lot of things: his brother, his gang, his image, apparently carpentry... but the most pressing at the moment, the one he first thought to get sorted for the impending fallout, was Kiyotaka.

“You... love him an awful lot, don’t you?”

“No shit. Where’ve you been?”

Takaaki honestly couldn’t answer. Perhaps between them they wore so many masks before that the words had gotten completely muffled and the eye holes of his closed up with his own assumptions. He knew Taka had been plagued by bullies ever since the scandal, and for so long he couldn’t shake the paranoia that the entire relationship was a stage in an elaborate plot to wound his child. His child, who in the time between his wife’s death and his remarriage had been the only person in his world. What had Taka spoken of while attending him? Something about reawakened insecurities leading to overcompensation?

“I’m so sorry. Really, truly, I am. I thought so badly of you for no reason until this spell forced me to reconcile with you.”

“It’s cool. I wasn’t exactly a saint to ya either, man.”

Takaaki wished he had the words at the moment to say more, to articulate everything he discovered, but he couldn’t. His vocabulary just wasn’t up to snuff.

Then, Daiya’s voice called out of the blue, “Hey, Mondo! Bro, where the fuck are you?! Hiro an' I set up yer bed!"

Takaaki glanced back to Mondo, who still looked shaken. He clapped him on the back. "I'll go take care of him. Let's put this to rest for now and talk about it in the morning."

"Fine by me! Gettin' a bit sick of it, in case ya couldn't tell," he chuckled awkwardly, clearly trying to stuff down the anxiety he displayed a few moments ago.

Takaaki rose, and before he left Mondo advised to call Daiya "asshole" a couple times or else he'll get even more suspicious. So he did, along with grumbling about how tired he was and cracking wise when he paid attention to what his faux brother and Hiro talked about. He made a decent grouchy teenager when he put in the effort. Well, the grumbling part wasn't that much work, because he really was drained. His body just wanted the day to be over and done with, it seemed. That's likely why he had trouble following their exchange. Soon, Hiro and Daiya said goodnight and moved their eclectic conversation to the former's room. Kiyotaka, who had gone to his room to study after clearing the table, came back down.

He stood straight as a flagpole over the couch. "Hello dear, I hope you're feeling better!"

"I feel... fuckin'... wiped out, dude." So wiped out that he was fine sleeping on a couch. Mondo slept there all the time, though, so it wouldn't take a toll on him here.

"That's fine, that's fine! Rest and heal!"

He bent down to give him a smooch. Takaaki cringed as he had before, albeit not as energized, and hurled his earlier excuse at him again.

"Bro, bro, remember the busted lip…"

"Oh, alright, no lips." He planted a kiss on his forehead and Takaaki tried to ignore the feelings behind it. He then remembered what Mondo told him before and reasoned he wasn't in any state to have that conversation, so it would wait.

"It's rare I ever get to give a forehead kiss, your hair is usually in the way! Sweet dreams!"

"Yeah, yeah, sweet dreams…"

Kiyotaka left and, after a spell, Hiroko passed through with Mondo.

"...No, trust me dude, your back is completely jacked, you're gonna have to sleep in our bed. It's only weird if you make it weird." She then turned her attention to her true husband. "Night night, Kiki."

"Night, Hiroko. Night, Mondo."

Soon, Takaaki was by himself. He only had the energy to tug the elastic band out of his hair and set Mondo's curls free before he drifted off.

* * *

Kiyotaka would consider the following Saturday to be far better. When he rose in the early hours of the morning, he gave Mondo another visit. After his routine groans from being awoken so early, he was atypically ecstatic. He gave him a bone-crushing hug and peppered his whole face with kisses. Several cries of "I'm me! I'm me!" and "Holy shit!" pierced his eardrums. Taka didn't understand it, but he was glad Mondo was out of his funk and happy to be who he was. When the family sat down to breakfast, his father also seemed in unusually good spirits, which pleased him even more.

After the meal, he wondered what changed. Mondo and his father had been alone quite a few times yesterday evening, perhaps they had talked and settled their differences?

Hiro had a different idea. "It's aliens, dude! Like I said, they totally got replaced! I got evidence, too!" He pulled out a plastic bauble and handed it to him. "I stepped on this thing earlier, hurt a lot. I've never seen it before!"

Taka stared at it for a solid minute. "Hiro, this is a toy."

"That's what they want you to think. The maze looks a lot like a crop circle, don't you think? That's sorta what I think it is. It's like a compact version so you can signal your alien buddies whenever."

Taka winced. "Hiro…"

"No, really! This is serious stuff! I didn't get a vision exactly, but I did get this vibe of abject dread that just screamed we were next."

He yoinked the maze away from the space between them. "With all due respect, brother, I think you need to come back down to earth! Nothing paranormal occurred between Mondo and our father, it's as simple as that!"

"Hey man, give it back! Just, like, think outside the box you're in for one second..."

"Perhaps I would if you stopped believing all these unfounded fantasies! As it stands, I am quite pleased to be in my box. It's rather cozy!"

He marched away in a military style with the confiscated item in tow. Maybe it was strict, but Hiro indulged in drivel far too readily, and it cost him quite a deal in the past... literally! He was just looking out for his step-brother! Besides…

"Ouch!"

This toy was evidently a safety hazard, so into the garbage it went!

**Author's Note:**

> I'm not continuing this but look I _had_ to keep the stinger, it happened in the original Freaky Friday.
> 
> The body-switching mechanism is partly inspired by the "Escape From Vault Disney" (which is an excellent Disney podcast, I highly recommend it) episode on the weirdly racist 2003 Freaky Friday where they jokingly suggested something along the lines of "they should remake this with an all-Asian cast where they switch bodies after they go to a McDonald's and get haunted happy meal toys." I remembered that while I was conceptualizing this and the burger abduction thing from the game and I was like "oh this is perfect and funny to me and me exclusively."


End file.
